Ton coup va rater (or Your shot will misfire)
by spiderfire
Summary: "The gun will misfire," Javert said. With a sneer, Thénardier pulled the trigger. The gun did not misfire. **** This work was created in collaboration with Cheddarrice. Bluedog and angua both helped with the development and Angua beta'ed.


**1. Éponine**

Éponine sat shivering on an upended barrel. The ragged dress she wore was once blue and fine, but now it was brown and it offered little protection against the cold. She held a tin cup in her hands, rattling a lone sous in the bottom as people passed by. However, she was not really begging. If she had been, she would have been talking more, haranguing the people who did not drop money in her cup, thanking the ones that did. Instead, she was quiet, glancing occasionally at the door of the building across the street.

With a sigh, she looked down the street and watched as the Patron Minette slipped through the shadows. One by one, they arrived, dressed in black, their faces darkened by way of disguise, and they entered the house.

Bored, she glanced down the alley toward Azelma. Azelma was not there. What the hell? Where was that girl? Probably chasing after some rich guy whose pocket she could pick. Why wasn't she doing her job? She frowned, wondering what she should do, but then Montparnesse wandered in, late as usual. Unlike the others, he walked up to her instead of going right in.

He stood close, trailing his fingers through her hair, speaking softly, but she was not paying attention. She was pretending that it was Marius…she had spoken to Marius for almost half an hour earlier today. He was so smart, so kind…What would it be like to have his hands in her hair? His mouth on hers? In the distance, she vaguely noted Brujon walked by, heading into the house.

" 'ponine! Are you paying attention?"

She blinked and looked back at Montparnesse, her daydream of Marius suddenly shattered. She tried not to cringe when he ran his cool fingers down her cheek, gripping her chin to tilt it up. When she met his eyes, she tried again to pretend it was Marius. He bent down and gave her a kiss. "A promise for later" he whispered.

And then, a heavy hand was on her shoulder and she squeaked as Montparnesse was torn off her. Wide eyed, she struggled as she was grabbed from behind, vaguely aware that Montparnesse struggled with some tall, grey haired beast. A hand clamped over her mouth, the other held her firmly, immobilized in the arms of some giant ape. She tried to bite down but the arm squeezed around her. "None of that!" a deep voice growled. Montparnesse dissappeared from her view, "Settle down, kid," he growled at her. "We don't want you."

She was dragged down an alley. The voice continued, "Cooperate, things will be a lot easier for you. Fight me, you are done for. Got it?"

Wide eyed, scared, she had nodded.

"I am going to take my hand off. No screaming, you hear?"

She nodded again.

He removed his hand from her mouth and turned her to face him. She found herself facing a short, blonde copper, nearly as broad in the shoulder as he was tall. "What's your name, kid?"

"Éponine."

"That other girl, Azelma, she's your sister?"

She nodded, twisting in his strong grip on her shoulders, but unable to break it. So that's what had happened to her.

"I am going to take you to her. When we are done here, we'll talk. If you cooperate….Let's just say thing will go well for you. Do we have a deal?"

"What about…"

He smiled with a nasty expression. "Your boyfriend?"

She thought of Marius but she realized he meant Montparnesse.

The copper continued, "He's done for. The Inspector has had his eye on him for ages."

He took her around the corner where Azelma had been left in the guard of a young copper. He had a gun out that he was holding loosely, not really pointed at anything. "Pierre – another one for you," her captor said.

Pierre nodded and straightened up. "Yes, Sarge."

Azelma looked at her, but they said nothing.

She sat down beside her sister and looked at Pierre. He did not seem like much. Pimply and young and scrawny. She watched her captor walk away, back toward the house and she wondered what they had done to Montparnesse. With an idle smile, she thought about how nice that would be, to have Montparnesse gone, and Marius…

She was interrupted from her reverie when a shot rang out. Her head jerked up. Marius! Was he okay? There was not supposed to be gunfire!

The cop who was guarding them jumped and looked toward the house. She could hear the sounds of feet running, shouting, people yelling in alarm. She glanced at Azelma and then back at the young cop. He was still distracted, looking towards the shot. She looked back at Azelma and held up one, two, three fingers. On the third, they sprang to their feet and ran in different directions.

"Come back here!" the cop yelled.

She did not look back. She ran a few blocks to get out of sight and then doubled back. Hiding in an alley, she looked at the house. Was Marius okay? Was it safe to go look? She heard the cops blowing their whistles in the distance, but here, things seemed quiet. She stood and was in the open when a man came out, carrying another man in his arms.

With a start, she recognized the man as the mark, the white haired philanthropist. But who was the man he was carrying? She could not make him out. All that mattered was that it was not Marius, that was much was clear from his hair.

The man looked up and down the street and then he spotted her. "Boy!" he shouted, "Fetch me a fiacre! A _louis d'or _for you if it is here in three minutes!"

A golden louis? That was incentive enough. She turned and ran down the street as fast as she could.

**2. Thénardier**

"The gun will misfire," Javert said.

With a sneer, Thénardier pulled the trigger. The recoil hit him. The gun did not misfire.

The policemen, shot at point blank range, fell over backwards, his hands clutching his chest. There was a muffled scream from somewhere

"Holy shit!" roared Brujon. "What have you done, Thénardier?"

Thénardier looked at the gun in his hand, a whisp of smoke coming out of the tip, and then at Javert on the ground. "A good riddance!" he exclaimed.

Babet took the gun from Thénardier's hand. Thénardier did not resist, he was still staring at the downed policeman with a manic grin. "You fool!" Babet hissed. He looked at the rest of the gang. "Run, you sons of whores! Run! Before coppers get here. He has to have backups."

There was chaos as the room cleared. Thénardier also turned to run, but the great Gueulmer reached out and grabbed his arm with an iron grip, solid and immobile as a mountain. Madame Thénardier held out for moment, but Babet glared at her, "Get out, you whore!" Thénardier watched as his wife tore out the door.

Thénardier tried to free himself from Gueulmer's hand, "How dare you!" he shouted. "This was my operation."

"The job did not include murder of a cop, you useless amateur." Babet turned the gun over in his hand, holding it by the barrel, so the butt end stuck out. "And, with a witness!" He gestured at the mark, the so-called rich benefactor, still bound to his chair. "You gonna to kill him too?"

With growing panic, Thénardier struggled to pull free but he was not able to break the grip that held him.

With a single, decisive strike, Brujon brought the butt of the gun down on Thénardier's temple, and his world went black.

**3. Marius**

Marius perched on the wobbly chair, peeking through the chink in the wall. The Inspector's pistol dangled uselessly in his hand, forgotten. His eyes swiveled from Monsieur Leblanc, father of his beloved, to Thénardier, savior of his father. Things were not right but what was he to do? Damned, no matter what path he took, he choose the middle ground and took no path at all.

All of a sudden, the inspector was there, in the room! Where did he come from? Marius lost his footing and wobbled on the chair. When he got his eye back to the chink in time to see Thénardier fire the pistol at point blank range and the Inspector collapse to the floor. Dear God! He felt a scream come from his mouth and he tried to swallow it but again, he lost his footing. What had he done?

What should he do? What kind of a monster was Thénardier? And M. Leblanc? Was he okay? Damn it all, what was wrong with him? What about the Inspector?

Shaking, he climbed back up on the chair. At first he thought the room was empty, but then he realized he was wrong. Thénardier lay in a heap on the floor. M. Leblanc looked towards the open door, towards the window and then at Javert. Outside, down the hall, there were shouts and yells as the police clashed with the Patron Minette.

Suddenly, M. Leblanc got up. Hadn't he been tied? Marius watched as he looked at his arm, where he had burned it, and then stoically pulled the sleeve down. He went over to where the Inspector lay crumpled on the floor. He reached down and checked the Inspector's pulse, opened his coat to look at the wound. The Inspector groaned and opened his eyes as he stared up at Leblanc.

"You!" the inspector grunted. He reached up and gripped his bloody hands into M. Leblanc's coat.

M. Leblanc looked grimly at the policeman as he lifted the inspector into a sitting position. "That was a damned fool move, Javert."

It might have been a laugh, barked out through the pain, or just the pain, but the inspector made a peculiar sound. "You're a fine one to talk." His fingers tightened on M. Leblanc's coat. "Finish me, Valjean," the inspector said. "You know it is what you wanted to do."

"Shut up," M. Leblanc said. He looked into the inspector's eyes and the inspector met them. Marius watched in bafflement as M. Leblanc's eyes took on a look of compassion. "Here," M. Lablanc took one of the inspector's hands and guided it to his chest. "Press here. There is no spurting blood. I think the bullet may have missed anything vital."

Javert grunted, but held his hand against his chest.

M. Leblanc gathered himself, putting an arm around Javert's shoulders. "This is going to hurt, Inspector."

M. Leblanc lifted the inspector, one arm under his shoulders, one arm under his knees. Marius heard the Inspector cry out. M. Leblanc staggered for a moment as he stood and settled under the inspector's weight. Marius watched in amazement as M. Leblanc carried the inspector, who was not a small man, out the door.

With a sigh, he sat got down from the chair and put his head in his hands. What the hell had just happened?

**4. Combeferre**

It was a busy night at Nekker Hospital, with the cold, raw weather. This was the kind of weather where the poor, who had not adequate clothes on their back nor a roof over their heads suffered the most. Combeferre tended to a steady stream of people who trickled through the reception room of the hospital with minor maladies. For most of them there was not much to be done: a boy's cough aggravated by the cold, a young girl with frostbitten fingers, an old man shaking violently with exposure, a middle age woman with a fever. He gave them a warm place to sit, a drink, a blanket. He moved from person to person, checking on them while they warmed up and he decided if they would be admitted to the main hospital or sent on their way.

A fiacre pulled up outside and Combeferre peered through the window. The coachman got down and there was an exchange with whomever was inside. Then, a man dressed better than anyone else Combeferre had seen yet on this night, a man with startling white hair and a dark green coat, got out. As the man took to his feet, he staggered and gripped the door of the coach to steady himself.

Combeferre glanced around the room until he spotted the nurse who was aiding him. He called, "Nurse! I think I will need your help!" as he pulled on his overcoat and headed out into the cold.

He jogged up to the white haired man. It was difficult to make an assessment in the dim light, but he seemed shaky and wan. "May I help you, sir?" he asked the man.

The man shook his head, pointing towards the interior of the coach. "No, not me. I'm fine. The inspector! He's been shot. He passed out on the way here."

The coachman grunted, "Damn cop's gone and bled on my velvet!"

Combeferre peered in the dark carriage and he could make out the slumped figure of a man on a bench. The nurse came out of the door and Combeferre yelled back, "Quickly! We will need Doctor Laplace and a stretcher! A man's been shot."

The nurse turned and darted back into the hospital.

Combeferre looked over his shoulder at the white haired man as he began to climb into the carriage to check on the policeman. "Can you tell me what …" From his awkward position, half in, half out of the carriage, he noticed that the man had gone pale and glassy eyed. He had just a fraction of a second to reach out before the man's legs gave way. With a grunt as the man's weight landed on him in his twisted position, Combeferre broke the man's fall and tried to guide him gently to the ground.

He leaned back against the carriage and looked at the two patients. He looked up as the nurse returned with the stretcher and two orderlies to bear it. "I'm sorry," he said. "We will need two stretchers."

Combeferre perched on a stool next to the bed where the white haired man had been placed. The man was still unconscious. Combeferre had decided that he must be in shock.

Once he had gotten the man inside and had seen how much blood was on him, he had stripped off the man's coat and shirt, but the blood mostly seemed to belong to the policeman. As he had conducted his examination, he had ensconced himself in a state of clinical detachment as his hands passed over the ropy, healed scars on the man's back and the smooth skin of a brand on his shoulder. (_T P_ What did that mean?) Those injuries were old and healed and were not the cause of the man's current state.

When he had first seen the burn on the man's arm, the swelling mound of blackened flesh, he had frowned at the wound. This was unlike other burns he usually saw. Boiling water or soup would make burns that covered a large area with angry red, blistery skin. Falls against a stove may produce blackened patches like this, but they would a handspan or more in size. Hair or clothing on fire – those were the worst and he had seen more than one person die after such an injury. This wound was different. Burns usually covered a wider area than they were deep. But this one, this one almost looked like something red hot had been pressed into the man's flesh and held there, cooking the skin and muscle.

The smell alone, vaguely reminiscent of a boyhood attempt to cook a squirrel over a campfire, was almost unbearable. He gently probed the wound, trying to decide what was to be done. The cooked flesh would surely attract ill-humors. He had recently been to a lecture that had suggested maggots as an effective treatment for gangrene and other cases where the flesh was blackened and dead and he wondered if this might be an appropriate course of action for this wound.

He was so focused on studying the wound, the way the brachioradial muscle had been nearly burned through, revealing glimpses of the pronator teres beneath, how the muscles in the surface layer pulled the in a different way than the ones beneath them, when suddenly the arm was yanked from his gentle hold. He yelped in surprise, looking up, to see the white haired man alert and awake and protecting his injured arm with his other arm. "What are you doing?" the man demanded.

"You passed out in the street, sir. I was just trying to help."

"I am fine!" he declared. "Where are my cloths?"

Combeferre shook his head, "No, no sir. That wound requires treatment. The blackened…"

The man swung his feet over the side, swaying. No, he was not okay, Combeferre assessed. He could see the flushed look to his cheeks, the thin sheen of sweat on his skin, despite the cold. "Where are my cloths?" the man demanded again.

Helplessly, Combeferre waved at the chair next to the bed. "Sir, I really think…" The man got his good arm into the shirt. "At least let me bandage it?"

The man started to refuse but then the shirt brushed against his the inflamed red skin and Combeferre saw him blanche. He looked back at Combeferre, and he nodded. "Perhaps a bandage would be best."

_Hardly,_ Combeferre thought, but he would take what he could get. "I'll be right back, sir."

"Son?" the man spoke as Combeferre started to leave. Combeferre turned back to look at him. "Can you tell me? Does the Inspector live?"

Combeferre shook his head. "He was alive when you brought him here, sir. I do not know if he still lives. I will find out while I get the bandages."

The man nodded, "Thank you."

Combeferre left and walked down the hall to the room where bandages were kept. He ran into Doctor Laplace, coming out of the surgery, wiping his hands on the bloody smock he wore. "Ah, Combeferre, how fairs your patient?"

Combeferre shook his head. "He has a bad burn on his arm, but he is refusing treatment. Otherwise, he seems uninjured." Combeferre frowned, "Although I have never seen someone with so many healed injuries before. I would guess he has been flogged, many times, but long ago."

"Huh," said the doctor, distracted as he scraped a bit of gore from his fingertip.

"And your patient, sir? The man asked after him."

The doctor shook his head. "We shall see. I think the bleeding is stopped and there is no major damage. I have removed the bullet and a bit of his shirt that the bullet had pulled into the muscle. He was very lucky – the bullet became lodged in a rib, and did not penetrate through to his lungs."

Combeferre nodded. "Would you come look at the burn, before he leaves? Maybe you can talk him into accepting treatment."

The doctor nodded, "Absolutely." Combeferre gathered a handful of bandages and they walked back towards where he had left his patient, however when they got to the bed, it was empty.

"Damnit!" Combeferre swore.

"Maybe he has not left yet," the doctor said and together they ran towards the exit. When they got there, it was in time to see a flash of green as the man got into a carriage.

Shaking his head, he returned to the entry.

"What did you say his name was?" the doctor asked.

Combeferre shook his head. "I didn't. I did not get his name."

"Curious," the doctor said. "He looked a bit like…Fa…Fab…Fauche…I don't remember."

Combeferre looked at him curiously.

"A man who has been quite generous in to Necker Hospital in the past." The doctor shrugged. "It's probably someone else. Want to come examine the policeman?"


End file.
